Eric Springman

Eric serves as the Head of Development and also the Head of Zen.

Eric is passionate about drugs. Drug development that is. During his 25-year industry career, Eric has brought many new investigational medicines from discovery to clinic in disease conditions ranging from inflammation and fibrosis to osteoporosis and cancer. He’s also President of Illuma Biosciences, a drug development consulting firm he co-founded in 2012. Most recently, he served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Celtaxsys Inc, a privately held pharmaceutical research and development company. At Celtaxsys, Eric led the in-licensing effort for the company’s main asset, acebilustat (CTX-4430), which is a first-in-class immune modulator compound still in development that he and the Celtaxsys team subsequently developed from the preclinical stage through Phase 2 proof-of-concept studies in multiple disease indications.

Prior to his tenure at Celtaxys, Eric headed Discovery and Development at Locus Pharmaceuticals, a start-up that he helped grow from an initial 8 to 78 scientists. At Locus, using a ground-breaking computational technology for drug discovery licensed from Sarnoff Institute, Eric led teams that discovered and developed 3 novel drug candidates from idea to Phase 1 clinical studies in cancer and inflammation. Eric joined Locus from Roche Pharmaceuticals, where headed the Arthritis and Fibrosis Therapy Area. In this role, Eric led a team of 34 scientists and was closely involved in a spectrum of inflammatory disease projects ranging from discovery to Phase 3, as well as leading a scientific discovery research team focused on discovering novel targets and modulators of extracellular matrix remodeling and fibrosis.

He began his industry career as a Senior Scientist and Group Leader at Arris Pharmaceuticals (which later became Axys Pharmaceuticals and was subsequently acquired by Celera). At Arris/Axys, Eric led a group of research scientists and several discovery projects, one of which led to a Phase 3 drug in partnership with Merck.

Eric holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics from Florida State University, where his graduate work was presented at the 1998 Nobel Mini-Forum. He completed his postdoctoral training in Clinical Pharmacology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he was an American Lung Association Research Fellow. Eric is a past member of the Pennsylvania Drug, Device, and Cosmetics Board and the GABIO Board of Directors. He currently serves on the Scientific Research Committee of Vibliome Therapeutics.